Fanny Goes to War eBook

One warm summer day Gutsie and I were sitting on a
grassy knoll, just beyond our camp overlooking the
sea (well within earshot of the summoning whistle),
watching a specially large merchant ship come in.
Except for the distant booming of the guns (that had
now become such a background to existence we never
noticed it till it stopped), an atmosphere of peace
and drowsiness reigned over everything. The ship
was just nearing the jetty preparatory to entering
the harbour when a dull reverberating roar broke the
summer stillness, the banks we were on fairly shook,
and there before our eyes, out of the sea, rose a dense
black cloud of smoke 50 feet high that totally obscured
the ship from sight for a moment. When the black
fumes sank down, there, where a whole vessel had been
a moment before, was only half a ship! We rubbed
our eyes incredulously. It had all happened so
suddenly it might have taken place on a Cinema.
She had, of course, struck a German mine, and quick
as lightning two long, lithe, grey bodies (French destroyers)
shot out from the port and took off what survivors
were left. Contrary to expectation she did not
sink, but settled down, and remained afloat till she
was towed in later in the day.

A “Y.M.C.A.” article on “Women’s
work in France,” that appeared in a Magazine
at home, was sent out to one of the girls. The
paragraph relating to us ran:—­

“Then there are the ‘F.A.N.N.I.E.S.,’
the dear mud-besplashing F.A.N.Y.s. (to judge from
the language of the sometime bespattered, the adjective
was not always ’dear’), with them cheeriness
is almost a cult; at 6 a.m. in the morning you may
always be sure of a smile, even when their sleep for
the week has only averaged five hours per night.”

There were not many parties at Filbert during that
summer. Off-time was such an uncertain quantity.
We managed to put in several though, likewise some
gallops on the glorious sands stretching for miles
along the coast. (It was hardly safe to call at the
Convoy on your favourite charger. When you came
out from tea it was more than probable you found him
in a most unaccountable lather!) Bathing during the
daytime was also a rare event, so we went down in
an ambulance after dark, macks covering our bathing
dresses, and scampered over the sands in the moonlight
to the warm waves shining and glistening with phosphorus.

Zeppelin raids seemed to go out of fashion, but Gothas
replaced them with pretty considerable success.
As we had a French Archie battery near us it was no
uncommon thing, when a raid was in progress, for our
souvenirs and plates, etc., to rattle off the
walls and bomb us (more or less gently) awake!

There was a stretch of asphalt just at the bottom
of our camp that had been begun by an enterprising
burgher as a tennis club before the war, though others
did say it was really intended as a secret German
gun emplacement. It did not matter much to us
for which purpose it had been made, for, as it was
near, we could play tennis and still be within call.
There was just room for two courts, and many a good
game we enjoyed there, especially after an early evacuation,
in the long empty pause till “brekker”
at eight o’clock.